When I think about how grateful I am to have dentistry as a part of my life. I think about service to others. Dentistry offers incredible value. When people shrink the value of dentistry, by commoditizing it - separating the procedures from their health improving qualities, and distill it down to money for a filling or money for a crown, it is still an awesome value. A lot of dentistry lasts longer than most luxury commodity items. Let's take crowns for example. If you spent about $1200 on an elite plasma television ten years ago, it may still be working or you may have already replaced it. If you rolled $1300 into a new car purchase ten years ago, that car probably still has some value, but it also probably has 100,000 miles on it and the remaining life span of that vehicle is questionable. The average lifespan for a crown is somewhere on the order of 25-30 years, assuming that you choose a gold crown or a porcelain-fused-to-metal crown.
The other form of service that is uniquely suited to dentistry is Christian mission work. When you donate dental care to patients who might otherwise go without it, their hearts are opened. I have had opportunities to donate care in Matamoros, Mexico, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Dallas, Taylor, San Antonio, Leander, Round Rock, and I am looking forward to more opportunities. When patients realize how much of yourself you put into your work and say thank you, that is a great reward in and of itself.
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